Mycotoxin exposure in the plant-based diet through biomarkers assessment

Plant-Based lifestyles have grown significantly in recent years. Currently, 19% of the UK population classify themselves as vegetarians or vegans (FSA, 2019; The guardian, 2021) and the current trends point out an increase in the near future (Allès et al. 2017). These diets are typically higher in fruits, vegetables, grains, legumes, nuts, and various soy products (Craig, 2010). However, a plant-based diet can increase the exposure to chemical contaminants such as mycotoxins. Thus, vegetarians, vegans and flexitarians are a high-risk group due to high intakes of foodstuffs susceptible to mycotoxins (Wells et al. 2017, Garcia-Cela et al 2012)
Up-to-date exposure assessments performed in the UK such as the FSA study in 2014 did not take into account particular groups of population in their assessment, and therefore the exposure to mycotoxins could be underestimated. Additionally, it could have more co-occurrence of mycotoxin mixtures from a wider range of plant-based foods present in their diet, as no study so far evaluated in detail the exposure to mycotoxins in vegetarian and vegan diets in the UK.